What a difference 7 years makes!

Seven years.

It's a nice biblical number. Seven days for creation. Seven years Jacob worked to get Rachel ... after he'd worked seven years for Leah. One commentary I checked wrote, "The number 7 is usually equated with the idea of perfection."

Well, where I hang out we talk a lot about "progress, not perfection" -- and although I do not believe we've reached perfection -- any of us -- as I write this sitting in a hotel room in Long Beach (with this fabulous view out the window ...)

... it does occur to me just how much difference seven years have made since I sat in another hotel room in New Hampshire preparing for another consecration the next morning.

November 2003
May 2010

What a difference seven years makes, as we gather here in Long Beach for the consecration tomorrow of two new bishops for the Episcopal Church and pastors for the people of the Diocese of Los Angeles.

From as far as Minnesota, Massachusetts and Fort Worth ...

... and as close as a few miles north on the 710 ...

... friends from New Jersey ...

... and three past-Integrity Presidents ...

... are here with joy and anticipation to celebrate with Bishop Jon Bruno and the rest of us ...

... a new era of mission and ministry for the Diocese of Los Angeles.

No, it's not perfection. And it won't be until the kingdom comes, the reign is realized and the gender, orientation, identity or race of a Bishop for the Church of God is no longer an "issue." For anybody.

But what a difference seven years makes. Then there were police lines and bomb threats and CNN trucks with live satellite coverage of our every move as we gathered at a New Hampshire hockey rink to make Gene Robinson a Bishop in the Church of God. Today's press conference drew a handful of church media and a local reporter or two and the only lines we needed to cross were the ones in the hotel cocktail lounge.

And tomorrow we're going to gather across the street there at the Long Beach Convention Center and the first woman Presiding Bishop in the history of the Episcopal Church is going to ordain the first two women bishops in the history of the Diocese of Los Angeles ... and the fact that one of them is a lesbian is not an "issue" but an opportunity for us to better incarnate the wholeness of God's abundant and inclusive love.

It's progress -- not perfection -- but what a difference seven years makes. TBTG!